Soundtrack Of Our Summer
by x-HotMess
Summary: The words that define us don’t always have to be our own.


* * *

**;;Mitchie;;**

**oh sweetheart, put the bottle down, you've got too much talent**

* * *

"Na-ate!" her high-pitched whine draws the attention of half the party, but as long as they're looking at her, who really cares, right?

"What?" he glances at her over his shoulder, and she smirks slightly at the way Tess glares at her.

"I need you," she pouts and puts her hand on her hip, the other hand tightening the grip around the bottle neck of her Smirnoff Black.

He sighs, rubs the back of his neck and gives an apologetic glance to Tess. She narrows her eyes and shakes her head sharply at him, holding her hand up and clenching it into a fist. Be strong.

"Right now?" he sighs, shoulders slumping, while Tess gives him a proud little grin.

"Yes, Nate, now," she hisses, stalking over and snatching his hand dragging him away from the blonde princess.

"I was in the middle of something," he protests, looking sadly back at Tess, but she's already disappeared into the crowd looking crushed.

She pushes him into a dark corner and presses her body against his, leaning her face into his closer and closer until she can feel his shallow breathing on her lips.

"What are you doing?" he whispers huskily, but she knows he knows the answer to that question and from the bulge growing in his crotch she can tell he's not going to resist.

"I need you," she whimpers seductively, toying her fingers through his curls just underneath his ear.

"Have you broken up with Shane?" the question was meant to be straightforward but it catches in his throat as she forces her knee between his legs.

She pulls away. "Why does it matter so much to you?"

Nate's eyes flicker with confusion. "Wait, so… you haven't told him?"

"Shane means nothing to me. But I mean something to him. How am I supposed to end something like that?"

He opens his mouth for an angry reply, but his gaze flicks to something behind her head and his face goes completely blank. He stares at her like he's mentally screaming at her to stop talking, but she's already had too much to drink and her head in spinning so the first words that come into her head are falling straight out of her mouth.

"I want to break up with him, I do, because he doesn't look at me the way you do, Nate. He's stopped trying, he's boring me. I don't love him, I don't know if I ever did. I want you. I _need_ you."

"Mitchie?" a voice cracks behind her, and she spins around with a gasp to come face to face with Shane, with a horrified Caitlyn hovering nervously behind him.

He doesn't say anything, his sad gaze just boring into her, her mouth opens and closes like a goldfish and she knows she should say something but she just can't find the words. He's frozen for a few more seconds before turning on his heel and pushing past Caitlyn roughly as she tries to murmur something comforting, so she's quick to glare daggers at the unlikely pair.

"How could you be so heartless?" she growls dangerously, like she doesn't even know her anymore.

"I'm not heartless, Caitlyn," she answers caustically. "It was the truth. People change, grow up, move on to other things. That's the cycle of a relationship. You'd know that if you'd ever been in a real one."

"I have been in a real relationship!" comes the lame insistence that meets mocking ears.

"Pity fucks don't count, Caity," her acidic smile is burning holes in her best friend's demeanour, but she can't stop and to be honest, she doesn't feel all that guilty. "You're just an average looking girl with low self-esteem that has 'fuck me' written across your forehead to any horny guy with half a brain. Nobody's ever loved you, Caitlyn, so you don't know what it feels like. But if you had, you wouldn't be standing there judging me right now. But you're not loved. _No one loves you_."

"Stop it!" Nate hisses at the two girls, one with venom filled in her eyes, the other with unshed tears. "Caitlyn…"

But Caitlyn follows the same path as Shane and disappears from their sight. He sighs and looks around for any more of his friends, but he can only spot Jason across the room staring into space detachedly, like he always does these days. He doesn't want to interact anymore. He thinks all these people make fun of him behind his back. And they do, but he was happily oblivious until she informed him of the nasty words making the rounds.

"What happened to you?" Nate snarls. "You've completely sold out! You have a serious problem!"

"You say that like it's a bad thing!" she titters, taking another swig from the bottle and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Nate, c'mon. You love me. You said you loved me."

"That was a month ago!" he snaps taking a disgusted step back from her. "You said you'd break up with Shane and I've been waiting this long for you. I waited for you."

"And now we can finally be together," she simpers, reaching out and running and hand down his chest, linking her nail into one of his belt loops.

"No, Mitchie, we can't," he backs away from her, shaking his head slowly. "Because I waited so long that my feelings have changed. I've grown up, moved on to other things."

"What?" she states blankly, because let's face it, it wasn't as if he could ever do much better than her.

"Bye Mitchie," he wanders away in a daze, and she's left standing by herself wondering what the fuck just happened.

She fed off him. She needed his forbidden attention and objectionable, lust-filled gazes to feel alive. It was selfish and she took Nate for granted. Now he isn't in love with her anymore, and she has hurt Shane far beyond forgiveness. So now she is alone. She stares down at the half empty bottle in her palm. Nate was right, she does have a problem. But it would be a long time before she could ever admit that to anyone, especially herself.

* * *

**??Nate??**

**tap on my window, knock on my door, i want to make you feel beautiful**

* * *

No wonder she left him standing alone at that party. He would have done the same thing in her shoes. She knew he couldn't help it, but it just wasn't fair, expecting her to stay.

It was his god damn life story. Nate to the rescue. Help them, Nate. They need you. Tess needs you. Mitchie needs you more. Everyone's always in some trouble or other. And he always found himself the one getting them out of it.

Shane and Mitchie were the perfect match. She kept him grounded. He made her come out of her shell. But their fights, god, their fights would rage on and on and somehow she always managed to convince herself it was her fault. And she'd cry and cry until some poor sap would be sucked in (again) to go and comfort her. And somehow that sap would always be him.

Always the sidekick. Always second best. A last resort.

It isn't like that with Tess. Tess uses him as an emotional punching bag. She constantly insults him because it's the only way she knows how to show she loves him, but it's okay, he understands. And when she's upset, she rages and screams and throws things until he kisses her and tells her everything is going to be alright. And he doesn't know why but somehow she always believes him. She believes him every fucking time, even after he ran back to Mitchie the minute she beckoned for him. He doesn't know why he goes, probably for the same reason why Tess always lets him back in to her life. Love has this way of turning everything on its head.

But no more. He can't just blindly follow someone around while they toy with his heart, making up their mind. Whatever he might have felt for Mitchie has been obliterated. No, he knows he has to love someone who returns his affection. He's being such a goddamn hypocrite but he doesn't care. He just hopes she gives him one last chance he doesn't deserve.

He sighs and reaches out to knock on the wood of her front door. But before he had the chance to, the door disappears from under his knuckles and a very surprised Tess Tyler looks up from the door handle to see who is blocking her path. Her mouth forms an 'o' shape as he gives her a small smile and raises his hand in a timid greeting.

"What are you doing here?" she says in a low voice, with a hint of a threat behind it.

"Tess…" is all he manages to say, taking a step forward to comfort her.

"Don't!" her eyes suddenly fill with tears as she snaps at him spitefully. "I know what you're going to say. You always do this, Nate!"

"I know, Tess, I know. But it's for real this time, I swear. There's no going back. I said goodbye to her once and for all." The pain in her eyes is gnawing at his conscience and he wants to sweep her into his arms like a Mills and Boon novel and fly away and just start over.

"You and I both know that means jackshit, Nate. Because you know what's going to happens next time she falls, don't you?" She doesn't want to fly away with him. Understandable.

"I won't be the one to catch her," he sighs, staring at her pleadingly. It's started to feel like he's too late but he's not giving up that easily.

He honestly doesn't know what else he can say to convince her that she's the one for him. He was hoping that it would come to him when he saw her and suddenly all the right words would appear in his heart and it would be perfect.

Yeah, right.

So instead he just reaches out and runs the tips of his fingers over her hairline, down along her jaw, cupping her cheek in his hand. She flinches but doesn't pull away.

"You're beautiful," he whispers, letting his arm drop.

"I know," she shrugs, before shutting the door in his face.

* * *

**&&Caitlyn&&**

**i'm falling, falling apart for you**

* * *

She's not a hopeless romantic. Never has been. So she has absolutely no idea what she's doing.

She doesn't know what love is, how it works. She can only take in so many Grey's Anatomy voiceovers before she has to remind herself that she's not on a television show. This is life. Are relationships really like the ones on the screen? They sure go for a lot longer than forty minutes at a time. And you don't see the boring bits on TV. They don't catch those minutes in between waiting for your turn to pee outside the bathroom door and rummaging through the kitchen cupboard to see if he's a Cornflakes or Cheerios kind of guy. They miss the little things, like the way he always puts on both his socks before his shoes, or the tingles that shoot up your spine when he touches the back of your knee or the skin just behind your ear.

They were walking back from the local bar when it happened. Shane was kicking a pebble along the pavement, and she shoved her hands in her pockets as the air around them cools and the fall wind tosses around the brown leaves that scatter the streets. Suddenly, he stops in his tracks, and she has taken a few extra steps before she is aware of the empty space beside her where her friend should have been. She turns around to see what has distracted him, to see him staring at the sidewalk with a blank look on his face.

"Remember this?" he mutters, his gaze unshifting from the carvings in the concrete.

She hums in the form of a question, taking the few steps back to stand next to him and look down at what was captivating his attention.

Scrawled into the ground are three names. _Caitlyn and Shane were here 2008. Mitchie was not._

"We wrote that the day we met," she says, barely above a whisper.

"I asked you why, and you said why not. Great first impression, Caitlyn," he grimaces bitterly at the name of his ex-girlfriend along side his and the girl next to him.

"Mitchie wouldn't us let her include her. God, she got so mad when we added her on the end," she laughs, before catching the expression on his face.

She knew he was still hurting from the way things ended with Mitchie; he still loved the girl who didn't want his heart. She's tried consoling him, distracting him, ignoring it, pretending like she never existed. And she thought it was working. But seeing him now, with that fragment of sidewalk, all the good and bad memories of her came flooding back, and she imagines it must be the same for him tenfold.

She thought she was helping. At the very least she thought he _wanted_ to get over her. Now she isn't so sure. But she has to do something because her cheeks are turning red from the cold and she can't stand to see him this sad anymore.

"It's not too late, you know," she takes his hand and squeezes it lightly.

"Too late for what?" He's still staring at the ground with his bottom lip trembling and all she and wants to do is scream '_look at me!_'

"To be happy. Look, Shane, I know she messed you up, but you've got to let someone else in sooner or later. I miss the person you were before," she releases his hand roughly and starts to walk back in the direction they were originally headed, leaving him with his arm swinging by his side.

He gazes after her in bewilderment and has to jog to catch up, calling her name. She keeps up her steady pace and only pauses once to glare at him when he asks her what the hell she's talking about. She's sick of always picking up the pieces. He's reluctant to move on, and she gets that, but he can't expect her to wait around keep showing the same amount of sympathy. But he doesn't give up, he's pestering her and before she knows what she's doing she's grabbed him by the shirt collar and crashing her lips onto his.

It's over as soon as it's begun and she's turning to walk away before he can say anything. He's speechless, but that doesn't stop him from reaching out and grabbing her arm, spinning her back into his chest. The physical attraction has been lurking unnoticed for a while, but now it's surfaced and he knows and _ohgodohgod_ he's leaning in and kissing her possessively and all of a sudden her defences are down and she's falling way too fast before she can stop herself.

As they bang through the door of his apartment, he breaks himself away for a fraction of a second to ask her what this means.

"Nothing," she hisses, pulling her shirt over her head and attaching her lips to his neck as she struggles with the zip on his jeans.

It wasn't nothing. She picked up on the way he cringed when she mentioned Mitchie, the spark behind his eyes as she pressed her lips to his, and the way her stomach dropped when he touched her in ways she'd never felt before. And at the end of the day, it's the little things that count.

He's an Apple Jacks kind of guy, by the way.

* * *

****Tess****

**see, i know my destination, but i'm just not there**

* * *

Under the glowing streetlights, she sits alone. She taps her fingers on the steering wheel, staring at the rivers of water that trickle down her windshield. She never wanted to be this girl. The girl who gets so hung up on a guy that she just can't seem to let him go, even though she knows that holding on will ultimately only hurt her more.

Life's just not fair.

Mitchie had the perfect opportunity, the opportunity she should have gotten, the one she deserved, and Mitchie went and fucking blew it on her fifteen minutes of fame. She didn't plan for longevity. She didn't expect such a huge media interest. Mitchie screwed up her timing and instead of becoming one of the world's biggest recording artists she became another joke of a tween starlet that had faded into unemployment and obscurity.

She would have done much better. It was in her blood, after all.

And if that wasn't enough, Mitchie had also taken the only person the she might possibly care for more than herself. Nate tried to love her back, she knew he did, but in the end it wasn't enough for Mitchie's gravity that always caught him and dragged him back down. It was a vicious cycle that was destroying her life and she had to get out. She did get out.

Sometimes she wants back in.

Everything was so different without him. She still makes little notes in the back of her mind to remind herself to tell him about a new chord arrangement or pair of earrings she loved, before slamming on the brakes and reminding herself that she doesn't talk to him anymore. She doesn't belong in his twisted world of inconsistency and fluctuation. She likes things ordered, controlled.

She takes a shuddering breath and goes to take the keys out of the ignition, even though the engine's been quiet for some time now. She fumbles with the door handle and does a double take when she sees a lone figure standing on the corner of her street. Even though the sun in behind the horizon and under a thick layer of rainclouds, but a flash of lightening illuminates his facial features and she gasps when she realises who it is. She rolls down the window frantically, the frigid air hits her face and she gasps.

"What the hell are you doing out there?" she yells over the roar of the thunder.

"Waiting for you!" Nate shouts back, tiny flecks of water spraying off his drenched skin.

"Why?"

"Because I love you, Tess!"

"Liar!" she screams, winding up the window so fast the handle breaks off. It's still open a little bit and the cold rain mists in through the crack, freckling her face and her hair with tiny droplets.

She balls her hands into fists and her fingernails cut into her palms, and for a brief second she contemplates revving her car up and just running him over so he can finally leave her alone. But she's pretty sure they have laws against that sort of thing, and she'd most likely go to prison, even if she did plead temporary insanity.

While she's sitting there mentally comparing the pros and cons of vehicular manslaughter, she's missed the fact that he's ghosted up to her window and his knuckles rap lightly on the glass, making her jump. Her eyes are shining as she looks up at him, and he goes to open the door, but she faster than him and locks it as he jerks on the handle.

"Tess, please, don't be like this," he sounds so sad, but she knows she can't give in to him, not this time.

"I don't know what else to be like, Nate," she whispers, pushing her hair out of her face and avoiding looking at his eyes through the gap in the car window. "I can't deal with this anymore. It's not healthy. You just make me go in circles when I should be walking in a straight line. And no matter how hard you've tried to change, it wasn't enough. I'm never going to be enough."

"No, Tess, please don't say that. You are enough. You always were, I was just too much of an idiot to see it," his hand is against the glass pane and she can see the creases in his palm, the ones she used to lightly trace with her finger in those seldom precious moments when it was just the two of them.

"It's too late. I'm trying to grow out of this toxic life you've put me in, Nate, while I've still got the time to. I've spent so long holding on for you, delaying my plans, putting everything on hold because you promised that you would come back and never leave again. But you always left. I'm not letting you do that to me again."

He doesn't say anything, all she can hear is the sound of his heavy, uneven breathing and the splattering of the rain on her surroundings and the occasional rumble of thunder in the distance. She takes a deep breath and finally muster the strength to look at him, and the determination that was ablaze in her moments ago is diminished when she sees that his face isn't only wet from the rain, but she knows that if she asks him if he was crying, he'd deny it.

"I won't. Tess, please. I love you. I don't know what else to say. I love you. I love you," his tone is desperate and pleading and all her willpower shrivels up into nothingness.

She tentatively unlocks to door and swings it open, stepping out into the damp sidewalk that shimmers under the glow of the streetlights. His face lights up and he looks as if he's barely restraining himself from scooping her up in his arms. The only thing holding him back is the sceptical look still fixed on her features.

"I'd ask for one good reason why I should let you back into my life, but I know you don't have any," she scowls.

"You're absolutely right, I don't. Only the fact that I know I lo-"

"Shut up," she hisses. "Don't you fucking dare say you love me."

His face falls but she grabs him by the collar and pulls his face two inches from hers. She stares him down, challenging him, but he waits patiently for her to close the space, like he knows that it's not his choice to make. She sighs and kisses him softly, letting his familiarity seep into every inch of her. She doesn't trust him, but she loves him. She doesn't know how that works, but what she does know is that she's never been as happy as she is when his lips are against hers and she can taste his devotion. And if he leaves her again, well, there's always vehicular manslaughter.

* * *

**--Shane--**

**and i'm so close to being yours, won't you stay with me, please**

* * *

The way she clears her throat to get his attention makes him feel nauseous, because he knows in the back of his mind that what she has to say might just have the power to break his heart.

"I don't think we should see each other for a little while."

The cracks are appearing, and it scares him a little. He wonders if it will hurt as much as it did before.

He sits up frantically, the sheets slipping down his chest and he leans forward desperately. "What? Why? What did I do?"

She rests her chin on her knees that are curled into her body as she perches on the foot of the bed. "You didn't do anything, it's just…"

"Just…" he prompts, reaching a hand out towards her. She doesn't take it.

"I can't…" her sentence falters as she looks into his eyes, and she takes a deep breath before restarting. "I need to know that I can still function when you're not around. I need to know, so I can be sure I won't fall apart if you ever decide that you can't put everything you have into us, into me. I understand that it's hard getting over her, but Shane…"

She pauses to wipe at the tears cascading down her pale cheeks, and his stomach tightens with guilt as she looks up at him sadly.

"It figures that the first guy I fall in love with is still in love with someone else."

She's never said the 'L' word to him in the two months they've been sleeping together, but he'd suspected as much. He's cautiously enjoying what he has with her, because he had thrown himself in the deep end with Mitchie, and then proceeded to drown. He was certain that she was always going to be there, a knife in his heart, ready to twist and tear whenever someone mentioned her name or he heard one of her songs. He thought the scars that she left would always be too deep to properly heal, loving someone who could never love him back. That kind of pain should never have to be experienced by anyone.

But looking at the frightened, wonderful girl in front of him now, with her pink lips and red-rimmed hazel eyes that lack their usual sparkle, he realises that Mitchie has been fading, disappearing more and more. Caitlyn is different. She's spontaneous, unorganized, always acting in the spur of the moment. She never pushes him too hard, always helping him get back to the person he used to be. The transition was so subtle he barely noticed, but now he understands that although he isn't completely in love with her yet, it was only a matter of time, he's sure of it. All these revelations happen so fast his head is spinning and he wonders how could he not have seen this coming?

"Shane? Say something?" His silence etches devastation across her face and he realises she's convinced herself he's not going to fight for her.

"Caitlyn," he whispers out her name and it's like breathing for the first time. He crawls forward to rest his forehead against her own, feeling her body heat prickle against his skin.

"Don't give up on me yet, okay?" he sighs, inhaling her scent of fruit shampoo and chamomile. "You make me so much better. I'm nearly there, Caity. Nearly there."

Her breath catches and he can feel the smile on her lips as she kisses him lightly. He draws her into him and he lays back down, her breath condensing across his collarbone as she takes his hand and toys with each individual finger. It's quiet, but comfortable, and all he knows is that he belongs wherever she is. He kisses her ear softly just as he's about to fall back to sleep.

"This is a good thing we've got going here, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I think it is."

* * *

**!!Jason!!**

**don't seek what you don't need from me**

* * *

He watched her change from the girl with the cute bangs and wide smile into the woman with dark hair, dark eyes and a dark edge to her voice. He watched her screw over his friends, her friends, everyone she once cared about. He used to hold her comments closest to his heart, it was her opinion that mattered the most to him. She was one of his best friends who slipped away and he couldn't for the life of him figure out how to catch her and pull her back to the person she used to be.

Everyone loved her and so her feet left the ground, but then they turned on her like Hollywood's fickle lifestyle always does and by that time she was so high up the only way she could come back down was to take a hard fall. And he didn't think he could be the one to catch her. Not after everything she'd done. You can't take away the past. You can say you regret it all you want, but it's not going to make the imprint of pain fade, make the memories turn into dust.

So it was too bad the one time she actually needed him was the one time he just couldn't be there.

"Jason, can you help me with something?"

"Don't you think it's time you started doing things for yourself, Mitchie?"

* * *

_I've been working really hard on this for freakin' ages and so happy I finally finished. I trying for something a little different but in the end it snowballed into this that has nothing to do with anything, it's just a sort of individual character introspective at different points of the narrative, using lyrics from songs I am absolutely in love with. You will be my best friend forever if you know them. I tried being elusive and not filling in the gaps with repetitive details, so yeah, I hoped you liked it. __**Reviewz?**_


End file.
